For 5G, over 2,000 base stations being installed per week: MoS Chauhan

The Minister of State for Communications told Rajya Sabha that 20,980 mobile base stations were installed as of November 26. Of these, Reliance Jio and Airtel have installed 17,687 and 3,293 base stations respectively.

In a written reply to the Upper House, Chauhan said, “Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) have started providing 5G services in the country from October 1, 2022, onwards. As on November 26… 20,980 base stations have been installed in 14 states and union territories. On average, TSPs are installing approximately 2,500 base stations per week.”

He also said telecom operators have reported that they are presently providing 5G services to their subscribers, having 5 G-enabled devices, at no extra cost, PTI reported.

Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, while responding to a question on the 5G services of BSNL and MTNL, said that BSNL floated the tender in October 2022 for its requirement of 1 lakh 4G sites.

“Further, the government has reserved the spectrum for BSNL for its 5G services while conducting the spectrum auction in July 2022,” Vaishnaw added.

He also stated that public sector telecom units BSNL and BBNL had connected over 100,000 households every month, leading to rise in data consumption to over 120 GB per month.

“The combined network of BSNL and BBNL today is adding more than 1,00,000 household connections every month. Imagine now, in rural areas having more than 1,00,000 household connections every month, providing good bandwidth providing good connectivity. Today the data consumption in these connections is close to 120 GB per month,” he said in Lok Sabha yesterday. 

Vaishnaw added that the government’s commitment towards providing excellent connectivity to North East was demonstrated through multiple projects.